On June 6, the Loudoun County Public Health Department delivered new statistics on the failure rate of alternative septic systems to the Board of Supervisors. For the period from January 2003 through April 2006, there were 65 failures of conventional septic systems (on an installed base of about 12,000 units) and there were 15 failures of alternative septic systems on an installed base of about 1400 units. After taking into account that these failures were occurring after 30 years of use in the case of conventional systems but only about 3 years of use for alternative systems, the conclusion is that alternative systems are about 20 times more likely to fail than conventional systems. This failure rate is even higher than the failure rate predicted in the Middleburg Eccentric in April.

In spite of this troubling news, the Board of Supervisors chose not to address the request, presented in February from the Unison Preservation Society, for an Emergency Ordinance to stop the installation of these systems until their performance rate can be improved. The Board did, however, instruct the Loudoun County Attorney, Jack Roberts, to complete review by September of proposed changes to Chapter 1066 of the Loudoun County Codified Ordinances which regulates onsite wastewater treatment. These revisions have been stuck in review for the past two years. The Board also proposed that there would be public hearings on this topic in the fall.

County health officials estimated that there are over 1400 alternative septic systems currently installed in the county with another 1000 or so that have been approved that are "in the pipeline" for installation. About half of all new subdivision lots approved in western Loudoun County require these alternative septic systems. With a failure rate now estimated to be 10% or greater over a 30-year life, the county is looking at the potential right now for 250 failing systems in the future. At least one expert engineer has testified before that Board of Supervisors that "the presence of hundreds of such units scattered over the western portion of the County poses the potential for a problem of truly crisis proportions."